FringeNYC Announces Plans For The Future

After a 1-year hiatus spent evaluating the needs of New York’s indie theater community, FringeNYC (New York International Fringe Festival) has unveiled its plans for the next 3 years under Producing Artistic Director Elena K. Holy.

Beginning in 2018, FringeNYC will move to October and will have three components:

• A smaller, adjudicated festival. This smaller adjudicated festival will allow FringeNYC to continue to serve the NYC area’s truly emerging creators / underrepresented communities and those who do not have ample opportunity elsewhere. This will be where international shows, too, can be a part of FringeNYC – since helping them secure visas is key to their participation. Similarly, national artists who are less familiar with producing in New York, and New York City venues, will find a home at this new smaller adjudicated FringeNYC.

• Because of the shift to the fall, FringeNYC becomes the annual convening of indie performance makers, with panels and workshops addressing current issues and the gathering of all indie performance stakeholders and constituents.

• In 2018, FringeNYC will also add a twist on the “Bring Your Own Venue” model. In the coming weeks, FringeNYC be forming an outer borough steering group to devise a plan by which venues outside of Manhattan can apply to make their programming an official part of FringeNYC.

In October of 2019, through a network of affiliated fringe festivals from across the United States, FringeNYC will become the official “National” Fringe Festival. FringeNYC will invite the 2018 award winning show from each affiliated US fringe festival (which currently includes nearly 30 festivals in cities including Chicago, San Francisco, Tuscon, Boulder, Orlando, Hollywood, Atlanta, and Washington DC) to participate in the adjudicated festival starting in 2019.

And then in 2020, theater producers and producing organizations locally and regionally will be invited to present an award to the piece that they’d like to further develop and present in a future season, which FringeNYC will help to promote. These further developed / next generation piece will also be welcomed back to a future festival.